Red Gates Farm, .......... and one of the lost farm houses

I know more about the farms here in the township during the first 60 years of the 19th century than I do about them in the second half of the last century. True there are far more photographs of the buildings but what really tells you the story of these places are the family documents, the census records and the countless bits of paper which never get kept.

And even photographs rarely capture the feel of a working farm, which is why I like this one of Red Gates Farm. It is another of the pictures kindly lent to me by Carolyn Willits and what makes it all more exciting is that one of the men staring back at us is her Uncle John who worked on the farm for the Wood family.

I guess we are looking at the farm on a Sunday in late summer. It is a quiet enough moment on a working farm. 
John and the other chap are out of their everyday working clothes into something smarter as befitting a day off. To the right of the picture are the farm’s chickens pecking away and even further to the right some farm equipment has been left propped up against the tree.

The picture is actually a postcard and reminds us that travelling photographers would record scenes like this to sell back to the residents as well to commercial postcard companies. In this case Uncle John used the past card to send to

And we can date the picture to sometime before 1906 when the postcard was sent to James and Florence Wood at 78 Manchester Road. James was the son of Thomas Wood who had been farming Red Gates since 1881.

Now it might seem bizarre that Uncle John would send a postcard from Red Gates which was just a few minutes walk from number 78 but that was how they did it then. With frequent collections and deliveries in a day people did really send a card in the morning to arrange to meet in the afternoon.

Ours was sent at 8.30 in the evening to arrive at breakfast time and the message was simple enough “ Another view for your collection taken while harvesting.” And it was to be one of the last.

Thomas Wood the farmer had died in 1902 and sometime in 1913 or ’14 the farm house was demolished to make way for the new library. It says much for the way that Chorlton had changed since Thomas Wood had taken over Red Gates. It had been one of the larger operations at this end of the township and had still employed three farm workers in 1901. But Thomas Wood was the last to farm Red Gates. Already two of his sons had chosen not to follow him. James had become a commercial clerk and John a music teacher.

Their farm house with its seven rooms went the way of many of our farm houses, so it is good that Carolyn’s picture has survived.

Location; Manchester Road at the Library

Picture; Red Gates Farm circa first decade of the 20th century from the collection of Carolyn Willits.

Walking along Court Yard in the June of 1841, looking for John Martin and Hannah Simmons

Court Yard, 1858-73

“If you take up a position upon the spot where what we now call the Court-yard meets the High Street, you will be standing at the centre of village activity and trade in olden times.”*

Now I am not quite sure when our local historian R.R.C. Gregory means by olden times, but I guess it will be sometime from the Middle Ages onwards.

Because it was here that the weekly market and annual fair were held from 1299 when John de Vesci the lord of the manor obtained a charter for a weekly fair on Tuesdays, and an annual  fair on the eve of Holy Trinity and the following two days.

It continued throughout the Middle Ages and even after it was discontinued there were four annual fairs until 1778.

Mr Gregory also records that the parish stocks “are said to have existed on the left hand side of the way, not many yards from the High-street,” along with a number of  pumps one close to the corner of the High Street, another a little further along Court Yard, with a third near the lower gateway leading to the churchyard.

Now in an age before mains water supplied, pumps ponds and water courses were very important, particularly given the concentration of properties along the Court Yard.

The 1843 tithe map shows seventeen properties along the east side of the road with a few more on the opposite side but this is a little deceptive because according the census return for two years earlier there were no less than thirty-two households which comprised 195 people.

I have yet to look at the Rate Books but it rather looks as if some properties were sub let.

Old buildings on Court Yard, Christmas 1980

Either way our picturesque ancient road was a populous place with the church at one end, the Crown in the middle and another publican at the end, serving both the spiritual and temporal needs of the community.

It was a mixed group of people with plenty of agricultural labourers a sprinkling of skilled artisans and a few who described themselves of independent means.

And as ever it is the people themselves who draw you in, like 25 years old Hannah Simmons, living wither her three children and what I take to be her sister in law and two children plus a fifteen year old girl who could be a lodger of sister.

It is easy to be judgemental and I did wonder whether Hannah was a single parent. Not that the period was as harsh on women who had children outside marriage as we have been led to believe..  There is plenty of evidence here in the parish records of single women baptizing their children in front of the congregation.

But in the case of Hannah the records show she stood beside her husband at the baptising of Elizabeth in 1839, Joseph in 1840 and Sarah in 1843.children.  The record also that a Joseph Simmons was staying on the night of the 1841 census at Middle Park House on the night of the 1841 census, and a decade later they have moved to Shooters Hill.**

Equally revealing is the story of the Crown. In 1840 it was being run by John Blundell who was still there the following year, but seems to have retired by 1843 when the place was in the hands of John Martin who seems very much a young man with a dtermination to go places.

At the age of 19 he is there in the 1837 land tax records renting a stable from a James Wright and land from a Mrs Dobson, and by 1843 is in the Crown renting the building and the yard.

Court Yard in 1843, showing the Crown

And as he began his long partnership with the Crown I wonder what its former landlord did with his retirement, which sadly was not long for John Martin died at the age of 51 in 1844.

 Not so John Martin who was to serve pints for another three decades.

So I shall end by leaving him in the Crown in the spring of 1871 with his clientele from Court Road who were still the same mix of agricultural labourers and related trades with a few posh people thrown in.

But with one exception who in his way pointed to the future.

For living in Queen Alley off Court Road was the young Edward Norton who was the son of the postmaster and who at the age of 14 described himself as a telegraph messenger, and that more than anything points to the future for Court Road and Eltham.

*R.R.C.Gregory, The Story of Royal Eltham, 1909

**Enu 21 6 Plumstead Kent 1851

Pictures; Court Yard from detail of OS map 1858-73, old buildings on Court Yard,1908,   from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on
The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm detail of Eltham High Street,  1844 from the Tithe map for Eltham courtesy of Kent History and Library Centre, Maidstone, http://www.kent.gov.uk/leisure_and_culture/kent_history/kent_history__library_centre.aspx

Snaps of Manchester number 5 ... in Albert Square with trams and horses

Of all of the snaps of Manchester I have featured this is one of my favourites.

We are in Albert Square sometime between the late 1920s and early 30s and we are at that cross over moment when horse drawn vehicles were about to become just that little less common.

In another decade they would be confined to milk floats and the rag and bone man.

But here they are still in use pulling a cart and a covered wagon.

In other respects it is a scene which I recognise from when I first arrived in the September of 1969.  In fact apart from the trams and their overhead cables and rails it is pretty much as I remember it.

Picture; courtesy of Sandra Hapgood

More on Didsbury’s past ….. The Dawn of Didsbury Jewry 1861-1926

Now I have been waiting for The Dawn of Didsbury Jewry 1861-1926 to arrive in the bookshop.

I was alerted to Julia Maine’s contribution to the history of Didsbury last week and having bought a copy this morning I pretty much devoured the book in one sitting because it’s a fascinating account of the Jewish community here in Didsbury.

And while the author writes that “it is written for a broad readership” the scholarship is there in its content, glossary and extensive references, covering many aspects of Jewish life, the Jewish contribution to the community and a host of local Jewish men and women, culminating with the impact of the Great War.

Throughout Ms Main draws on the memories of residents as well as written records and the generosity of those who donated images and additional material.

So, having read it in an afternoon it will now sit on the bookshelf and become an invaluable reference to dip into.

The Dawn of Didsbury Jewry 1861-1926, Julia Main, 2026, £9.65 is available from most bookshops, including Chorlton Book Shop and online at Amazon and other retailers.

Hardy Farm ............ the picture I have never seen before

Now there are not that many pictures of Hardy Farm and that is a shame.

I included one of the most well known in the book on Chorlton but always cast around for more.*

During the writing of the book I became familiar with some of the farmers who lived there in the 19th century and collected stories from some who knew it from their child hood in the 1940’s and 50’s.

But the memories are fading and it will soon be a full half century since it was swept away for the ill fated UMIST sports scheme.

That said this picture brought back memories for  my friend Marion Jackson who remembers Hardy Farm.

“In my childhood the shed where the cows were milked was to the right. In front was a yard and further back to the right the orchard where the pigs were.

The track went down in front and then through the hawthorn hedges to Jacksons Boat.

I so loved my Sunday visits here with my father in the 40s. This was on his route to work in Sale from Withington by bike. Everything that my beloved father found interesting he showed to me.

This was a special favourite; I guess it reminded him of home in Cork. I used to look at the posh houses in South Drive as we cycled....guess where I lived for a happy 30 years? What a lovely life I have had.”

And that is all I have to say other than a thank you to Marion for sharing her recollections .

Picture; Hardy Farm, 1966, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Andrew Simpson, 2012, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/the-story-of-chorlton-cum-hardy.html

Sherard House and Church Row in Eltham in 1841 and Richard White census enumerator

Sherard House from the garden, 1909

This is Sherard House and once again I set out to describe the place and once again I have got side tracked.

But I shall start with a little of what I know.

 It stood on the High Street roughly on the site of the Nat West Bank, was built in 1634 and retained many of the original features including “the handsome mantelpieces of carved oak, oak panelling which surrounded the library and the quaint old open fire places.*

By the 1840s the front had been changed considerably but the rear remained unaltered although it would have been difficult to see the features given that it was covered in ivy.

And I would  have loved to walk through its 20 rooms and sat in the garden which extended north to the footpath known as the Slip.

Church Row numbered 316-320 and Sherard House 311 and garden 309, 1844

I can’t be sure at present but I think in the June of 1841 it was occupied by a Jane Edwards who was attended to by six servants but had moved on by 1843 when Sherard House was home to Samuel and his wife Frances and their children.

The Jeffreys were well off, farming 256 acres of land north of the High Street around Well Hall.

Not that they or any of our people of property can be said to have lived a life excluded from those of the less well off.

At the bottom of their garden were the five gardens of Church Row, in which lived the families of a shoemaker, carpenter, plumber and three agricultural labourers.

And these people fascinate me.  There was John and Dorothy Fiske, Anne Wakeman, John and Susanna Francis who shared with Joseph and Jane Arnold, while further down the row lived the Russell and Blundell families.

What is all the more remarkable is that these ordinary families show up in a range of official documents from the tithe schedule to the parish records.

The opening page of the census Enu 4 Eltham Kent , 1841 with Richard's signature

All would have been known to Richard White schoolmaster and the enumerator who in the June of 1841 was responsible for delivery the census forms to the 126 households on the north side of the High Street from the church down to South End.

His was the job of making sense of what had been written and in some cases of filling in the forms of those who were illiterate.

These enumerators were not slow to amend and correct the entries, sometimes even altering the occupations listed by a householder.

Now Richard White is an interesting chap and I only wish I knew more about him.  He would have been paid for his work, and may have been selected from a number of people who applied for the job.

Baptismal record of Catherine White, 1838

He lived with his wife in Pound Yard close to the National School, and baptised his two children at the parish church, and then he falls out of history.

I can’t find him or his wife Mary, although there is one official reference to their son later in the century.  Neither of them was from Eltham so perhaps they moved on.

I suspect the rate books may give me a clue, and I have yet to pursue the school records, but in the meantime I shall leave them, but secure in the knowledge that I will return to both them and the occupants of Church Row.

*R.R.C Gregory, The Story of Royal Eltham, 1909

Pictures; Sherard House from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers,http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm detail of Eltham High Street,  1844 from the Tithe map for Eltham courtesy of Kent History and Library Centre, Maidstone, http://www.kent.gov.uk/leisure_and_culture/kent_history/kent_history__library_centre.aspx

Baptismal records and census extracts from ancestry.co.uk courtesy of The National Archives

"I had forgotten how black the town hall was" .......... pictures from Linda

The thing about old picture postcards is that there is usually a story which goes with them.

Albert Square, circa 1960s

Often that story is the message on the back, or the recipient which if you are lucky will lead to more stories.

Most of the ones in the collection have been picked up over the years with no extra information about the person who chose it in preference to another, or anything about them.

So it is a rare treat to be handed two picture postcards, by someone I know and who offered up a bit of back story.

These two are instantly recognizable, and will bring back plenty of memories, with some looking closely at the detail to compare with the same scene today.

Usually I would throw in my own observations, but where would the fun be in that?  Far better that I leave that to you.

Piccadilly Gardens, circa 1960s

Instead I shall close with Linda’s own comments on the postcards.

“As I couldn’t make my monthly trip to Holmfirth yesterday I sorted out some paperwork and came across these two postcards.

The one of Albert square is a Bamforth card with a deckle edge.

Their building near the bus station was sadly derelict for years but has recently been converted into flats and looks so much better.

I had forgotten how black the town hall was. Used to park in the square twice a year when I took my children into town to buy their shoes”.

Location; Manchester

Pictures, Albert Square, and Piccadilly Gardens, circa 1960s/1970s, from the collection of Linda Rigby